Asian and Pacific American students receive $2,500 scholarships from APIASF

South Seattle Community College announced in February that 45 of its students have each been selected to receive a $2,500 scholarship by the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF) for the 2012-2013 academic year.

More than 60 percent of the APIASF Community College Scholarship Program recipients are the first generation in their families to attend college and 70 percent of them come from families with incomes less than $30,000 a year. The scholars also represent many of the diverse ethnic groups within the APA community, including Burmese, Cambodian, Chamorro, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Native Hawaiian, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Samoan, Thai, Tongan, and Vietnamese.

The APIASF scholarship fund is designed to give AAPI students access to higher education and help develop role models and train future leaders in their communities. The APIASF Community College Scholarship Program also supports the new Partnership for Equity in Education through Research (PEER) project. The PEER project is a three-year, $2 million dollar project that collaborates with South Seattle Community College, one of the three APIASF Community College Scholarship Program institutions.

“Since 2003, APIASF has distributed more than $60 million in college scholarships to more than 6,000 students from across the country and in the Pacific Islands. The APIASF Community College Scholarship Program is a natural extension of our efforts to help the most underserved AAPI students finish college,” said APIASF President and Executive Director Neil Horikoshi. (end)